The Piano Forest TV Anime Reveals Cast, Staff, Ending Song Artist

The official website for the television anime of Makoto Isshiki's Piano no Mori (The Piano Forest) manga revealed the cast, staff, theme song artist, and new visual for the anime on Wednesday.

The cast includes:

Sōma Saitō as Kai Ichinose

Ryoko Shiraishi as Kai Ichinose (child)

Natsuki Hanae as Shūhei Amamiya

Yō Taichi as Shūhei Amaiya (child)

Junichi Suwabe as Sōsuke Ajino

Gaku Nakatani (Madagascar 3 CG supervisor) is directing the anime at Fukushima Gainax. Aki Itami (Flowers of Evil, Mushishi, Rainbow Days) and Mika Abe (Danchi Tomoo) are in charge of series composition. Sumie Kinoshita (Girlish Number, A Sister's All You Need) is designing the characters, and is also credited as chief animation director.

Aoi Yūki (Saga of Tanya the Evil, Hakumei and Mikochi) is performing the ending theme song "Kaeru Basho ga Aru to Iu Koto" (To Have a Place to Come Home to). The song's CD single is slated for April 25.

The anime will premiere on NHK in April.

Nippon Columbia hosted an audition for pianists to play for the show's main characters Kai, Shūhei, or Takako in their childhood years.

The manga follows two boys from different walks of life. Kai was born the son of a prostitute and learned to play an abandoned piano in the forest by his home. Shūhei is child of two prestigious pianists. The two boys end up meeting through their one common thread: music.

Isshiki launched the series in 1998 in Kodansha's Young Magazine Uppers until the magazine ceased publication in 2004. The series resumed in 2006 in Morning magazine, and it ended in November 2015. Kodansha published the 26th and final volume of the series in December 2015.

MADHOUSE adapted the manga into an anime film in 2007. The manga won the Japan Media Arts Festival prize in the Manga category in 2008. Isshiki's 1993 manga Hanada Shonen-shi received a television anime adaptation in 2002 and a live-action film adaptation in 2006.

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